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Thursday, November 08, 2018

Biased Journalism from FOX19's Jennifer Baker

While not the only member of the local media to create bias in referring to a group of Cincinnati Council members as the "Gang of Five", Jennifer Baker of FOX19 has gone multiple steps further. In an article today she refers to the group as a "Gang" directly:

In the meantime, however, the Gang and their lawyer can’t just ignore the judge’s order or try to seek exemption, Shrive wrote in court records earlier this week.

I added the bold section for emphasis. This is not a direct quote, as no quotation marks were used. At best she was trying to paraphrase. That's a failure. It is language a reporter would use when talking about a street gang. Something I think she and COAST and the Republicans know. It wasn't just one instance. She repeats it multiple times.

The Gang is “in contempt of this Court’s lawful order and should be required to show cause why they should not be held in contempt for their failure to comply with the Discovery Order," his motion reads.On Wednesday, Shrive went to higher court and filed a motion to dismiss the Gang’s appeal.The Gang, he wrote in court records, can’t use attorney-client privilege now on appeal to escape a judge’s order to release their secret text messages and emails.

What is just as bas is that she claims in the article the term "Gang of Five" is "self named" which is a lie. She's using a single text message that was never intended as anything more than a joke. The group didn't issue a statement declaring this reference. It was dug up by the Republicans and lawyers for them who are suing these council members as means hurt them.

To add insult to injury, she didn't even have a quote from anyone representing the members of council being sued. She had all of one side's arguments and nothing else to refute it.

Baker's article extremely is biased. This is terrible journalism. She is using this to either push her political opinions or to manufacture catchy controversy to gain Conservative readers.